Learn something new every day

The school system is very different here, but it has started, which means that we interns need to adjust our schedules a bit.  I was a bit surprised to arrive at the orphanage and see only a few handfuls of my regular morning class students.  To add to the oddities of the day, the classroom door was locked and nobody was sure where the key was.  Instead, we played games. 

This was probably one of the most valuable things I’ve done since we began working with these kids.  Every child is at a different level, just like any group of children, and it is easy for some to skid by.  These kids are so excited every day to learn and to be with us and they’re even more excited when they know something.  There is a lot of yelling out answers all together.  It means that the kids who don’t know the letters or the sounds or whatever we’re saying can say ‘Aaaa’ and we can’t really tell. 

These kids can sing the alphabet and know all of the letters and sounds in order.  They can copy down anything you write on the board perfectly, but copying is all it is.  Some of the kids know their letters and recognize the sounds and words on sight.  Some of the kids can read simple words.  One or two of the kids can sound out words.  The others will look straight at you and guess words with the same starting letter, in hopes that you’ll give it up when they guess right.  Sounding out words is extremely difficult.  Other kids tell you the word because of the picture.  Other kids recognize the letter but not the sound when it comes out of order and some only recognize a few letters and guess on the others. The go-to letter is 'P'.

 

I have a few sets of Creative Child Games ABC Flash Cards.  We played ‘Memory’ and ‘Go Fish’ and it was certainly very illuminating.  We’re going to work in smaller groups from now on. 

 Today with the older kids we worked on plurals and tenses by telling common children's stories with our flannel board. Some kids are ready to tell stories on their own, but the others made it a group effort. It's my hope that they'll become more comfortable talking together in my class.  Like any school, we need to warm up to each other.